Updated Nov. 17, 2015:
Although Metrolinx has yet to publish a report on the result of their consultation, it is clear that they have already decided on some changes to station names. This is revealed by a report for the TTC’s Board Meeting on November 23.
A proposed 2021 map (click map to expand) shows changes from the consultation information provided by Metrolinx (see original post below).
- The station at Keele, originally proposed to be named “Silverthorne”, has become “Keelesdale”.
- The existing Eglinton West station is to be renamed either “Allen” or “Cedarvale” (the TTC will pick one at its meeting).
- The station at Avenue Road, originally proposed to be named “Oriole Park”, has become “Avenue”.
- The station at Ferrand Drive, originally proposed to be named “Aga Khan & Eglinton”, has become “Aga Khan Park & Museum”.
- The station at Bermondsey has become “Sloane”.
- The station at Victoria Park, originally proposed to be named “Wexford”, has become “O’Connor”.
- It is unclear whether the “& Eglinton” suffix has disappeared from all of the surface stop names because it was not included on the Metrolinx map either.
I will leave it to the trivia collectors to spot the stations shown as not accessible on this map where elevators are now under construction or well into the design stage.
The comment period for station names on Eglinton has now closed, and the results make interesting reading.
These are linked from two pages for the initial set covering stations from Keele to the DVP, and for a followup set of three more stations east from Leslie. Few of the proposed station names received strong positive feedback, and I will not attempt to do justice to the range of comments received.
In brief:
- Silverthorne: Strongly disliked because hardly anyone knows where it is, and the name is not associated with the station location at Keele.
- Fairbank: Not liked in about half of the responses, again because the name is not well known.
- Allen: Strongly liked because the name and the location have a good link.
- Forest Hill: Generally liked, although some pointed out that the station is slightly outside of the actual village.
- Oriole Park: Very strongly disliked because “Avenue Road”, the actual station location, would be much more appropriate.
- Leaside: Liked by just over 50%, but many pointed out that the heart of Leaside is well east of Bayview.
- Sunnybrook Park: Very strong support, over 80%, for the station at Leslie.
- Science Centre: Strongly liked by almost 3/4 of respondents.
- Aga Khan & Eglinton: Liked by over half of respondents, but with a considerable debate about whether it should be “Aga Khan Museum”.
- Golden Mile: Over half of respondents disliked this proposal not least because the proposed location, Warden, is well east of the traditional “Golden Mile” area closer to Victoria Park.
- Wexford: Very strongly disliked for the simple reason that “Wexford” is two kilometres north of Eglinton at Lawrence, and is an utterly inappropriate name for the stop at Victoria Park.
A common thread is that the Metrolinx consultants have little or no actual familiarity with the city, and chose entirely inappropriate names for some locations, at times not even following their own overly complex “decision tree” for the process. At least they asked for feedback, but we won’t know until the process reports out whether they are actually listening.
There are times I suspect that Metrolinx consultants all hail from afar, and think Toronto is some sort of one-horse town where they can breeze in, look professional and leave. The problem with this is that the bad smell sticks not to the consultant, but to Metrolinx for being thick-as-a-brick to hire them in the first place.
Updated October 29, 2015 at 6:30 pm
It appears that Metrolinx has updated the station name list without bothering to tell anyone. The graphic on the Crosstown Project Home Page shows that some of the proposed names have been changed:
- Keele/Silverthorne is now Keelesdale, a popular suggestion in the comments.
- Avenue/Oriole Park is back to Avenue, again a popular suggestion.
Meanwhile, “Wexford” and “Golden Mile” still identify locations that are inappropriate for the stations.
[Image taken from the Crosstown website’s banner.]
Elsewhere on the same site, the Crosstown Route Map shows the original station names.
There’s nothing like consistency!
Steve Munro 
Keele_Tretheway would make far more sense than Silverthorne. Everybody who uses Eg West KNOWS where Keele and Tretheway are located. NOBODY knows where Silverthorne is.
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I think your comments are overly harsh. Wexford, for instance, is the brainchild of the TTC’s staff, forcing their agenda on the Metrolinx team. I for one think that the Metrolinx group is doing a fantastic job of attempting to make this city look world class instead of a jerkwater whistle stop.
Steve: This isn’t supposed to be a TTC project any more. I may have wrongly trashed Metrolinx, but until they provide me with (a) reason to think it’s all someone else’s fault and (b) explain why they went along with the idea(s), it’s their name on the logo, and they wear the stupidity.
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They don’t come up with good names.
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They didn’t let the public comment on the most egregiously stupid one, which is…”Eglinton”.
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I never understood “we don’t want to have the same names as the subway” argument. Other cities cope just fine, and we could also just append the word “North” if want uniqueness. (Victoria Park North on the LRT vs. Victoria Park on the subway). Same convention as the subway (Eglinton vs. Eglinton West)
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“Fairbank: Not liked in about half of the responses, again because the name is not well” known, presumably (missing word).
Steve: Fixed. Thanks.
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I thought the (cross street) & Eglinton original idea was dumb because it was too much useless information with the & Eglinton. If you didn’t know you were on Eglinton in the first place you’re in trouble.
But this has gone to the opposite level of stupidity. Even as a Scarborough resident who the heck identifies with those locations? Cross streets are much more useful IMO.
Meh. At least there’s no transfer to a stubway on this line so need reason to really complain.
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I head along Eglinton from Birchmount to Pharmacy all the time and have been doing so for years.
I grew up knowing what and where the Golden Mile is. For most people who grew up in that area the Golden Mile starts at Warden and goes to VP. The Golden Mile refers to the area where all the factories and such sprung up post war. It originally stretched from Pharmacy to Birchmount when first constructed. This name makes sense to me and locals in the area know right where this is.
As for Wexford this is literally the stupidest name ever. Wexford is the area at Pharmacy and Lawrence not Victoria Park and Eglinton. A better name for this stop would be Eglinton Square.
Naming it Wexford will confuse everyone much like naming a station Royal York (at Royal York road) makes people think they are the Royal York Hotel.
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Fairbank got a poor rating but it’s a perfect name. The TD (I used to work at) has always been known as the Fairbank branch and most people at Dufferin & Eglinton know that. Street signs say Fairbank on them the way Corso Italia or Portugal Village are displayed on St Clair and Dundas respectively. Naming the stations this way will help solidify Toronto as a city of neighborhoods and encourage people to visit and perhaps try the amazing food there.
I’m so glad Keelesdale was chosen because Silverthorne (as a neighborhood) is actually between St Clair & Rogers and the local Library branch, named Silverthorne, is on St Clair.
There’s even a description of “The Silverthornes” at one of the stops on the St. Clair streetcar.
Finally, Eglinton should be Eglinton-Yonge, just like Sheppard-Yonge and Bloor-Yonge.
I don’t mind Allan, but that one should have been Eglinton-Allan (or Eglinton West-Allan) which would follow, the current naming convention of “Line X-Line 1”
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I agree with Will D from York. Fairbank and Keelesdale are historic names for those corners, the local people know them, and very appropriate for Dufferin and Keele stops.
I also agree with Richard White regarding Golden Mile. It wasn’t just the name of a defunct mall, but a whole stretch of Eglinton.
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Following Metrolinx logic wouldn’t we have to eliminate multiple names for roads like Bathurst, Dufferin, Keele, King, Queen, Bloor and a lot of others. After all they are all called by the same name for every route that crosses them. When the announcement says Bathurst how am I to know if it is Bathurst and Queen, Bathurst and Bloor or Bathurst and Lawrence? What, you should say that since I am on the Queen car it must be Bathurst and Queen, how illogical.
I had the fortune(?) to live in Scarborough, Lawrence and Warden area, for 10 years (actually 9 years, 5 months and 11 days but who’s counting) and would never associate Wexford with Victoria Park and Eglinton. It was always around Lawrence and Pharmacy over to Warden. Why didn’t they name it O’Connor, after all that street comes into the intersection.
I also fail to see the problem with Leslie. Is there a subway station I haven’t heard about named Leslie on Bloor Danforth, sorry, line 2? I have always associated Sunnybrook with the hospital which is no where near Leslie and Eglinton and the Park there is called Serena Gundy, not Sunnybrook. This could cause confusion with someone who wanted to get to the hospital.
As the Golden Mile, what a misnomer, is a mile long the stop location is ambiguous and probably more associated with the Victoria Park Pharmacy region.
Also since there is a Union Station in St. Louis and many other US cities I think Union Station in Toronto should be misnamed to avoid any possible confusion. I suggest Fool’s Paradise in honour of Metrolinx who have their headquarters there. Perhaps it should be Fools’ Paradise as there certainly must be more than one fool to come up with this idiocy.
Malcolm, am I being too cynical?
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@Tom West, orthonogal directions are fine if there are a very limited number of stations with the name. If you have Victoria Park on the Bloor-Danforth line, and Victoria Park North on the Eglinton Ave LRT, what do you call the Sheppard LRT station? Victoria Park More North? Even worse is if you have a station built in between in the future. If a Finch West LRT station at Bathurst were Bathurst North, what would you call a Sheppard West subway extension at Bathurst?
I think that a name not being well know isn’t too much of an issue. The name becomes known when you need to use the stop. If you hear the name without knowing where it is, you can get adjacent information “between X and Y stations”, you can get intersection information, or you can just look it up (on the internet or a real paper map/atlas).
There is a legislative imperative to seek public comment and input, but no such requirement to listen to it or implement it where is feasible.
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Forgive me if this has been addressed before, but, I’m still confused as to who, and how, the line is to be operated by. Are the cars going to be in the Metrolinx colours? TTC staffing? How are the fares to be collected? Will there be free transfers between buses and LRT as is now with the subway? What numbering system will the cars have? And lastly, call me paranoid, but is this incursion into city territory a subversive way of eventually absorbing the TTC into Provincial control? If that is the case, then there is no surprise the powers that be at Metrolinx don’t know their neighbourhood histories. A lot of provincial bureaucrats know little beyond their constituencies.
Steve: Originally, Metrolinx was going to operate the line (i.e. contract it out, likely to Bombardier), but they relented and the TTC will operate the line. The cars will be Metrolinx green. I have no idea about fleet numbering. As to fares, that is still under discussion and is also tied up in the whole “regional integration” dialogue. I don’t see this as absorbing the TTC into provincial control (they really would want at most the subway lines, and even that is a big thing to chew on given ongoing capital maintenance costs now largely funded by Toronto.
As for neighbourhood familiarity, “planning by Google” is not confined only to the railfans and their fantasy maps.
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Metrolinx’s decision tree was a joke. Following it was a mess, and then not following it exposed the folly of their process.
Thank goodness they got rid of the ‘& Eglinton’ nonsense. As if the most important criteria for riders on this line is whether the stop is at grade or not. If this nonsense had prevailed, think about the mess when 2 at-grade LRTs intersected (Is it Don Mills & Sheppard, or Sheppard & Don Mills? Neither – it’s both!).
Given that Toronto’s lines mostly do (and will) follow a grid, I would have preferred to stick with cross-street names, and ‘duplication’ be damned. But I can certainly live with neighbourhood names, if they are at least valid. I’ll leave that discussion to others.
This leaves two other bad choices that stand out:
A) Eglinton. Surely this is ‘Yonge’ platform on the Eglinton line, and ‘Yonge-Eglinton’ station in the network context. This is why ‘Allan’ is the right choice. How can an agency screw up this simple consistency so badly?
B) ‘Aga Khan’, can’t be right, since this is a living person. ‘Aga Khan Museum’ seems equally helpful while eminently more appropriate. I’m surprised to hear that feedback was positive on this one – it certainly wasn’t when I submitted my comments to Metrolinx. I wonder about astroturfing.
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The reason for needing the cardinal directions is only because the YUS line was U-shaped, and you definitely can’t give 2 stations the same name on one line. Cardinal modifiers should be avoided for scalability, as you highlight. It is perfectly OK to have the same station name on different lines.
Which brings us to Dundas/Dundas West. This seems like an acceptable exception to preserve uniqueness in a then-small system. Or even in a large system. There are few roads in Toronto that curve as Dundas does, intersecting with orthogonal transit lines.
There is therefore no need for using cardinal directions on the Eglinton, Finch or Sheppard lines, or the SSE. But there is for the TYSSE: Finch West, Sheppard West, Steeles West (ahem).
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Speaking of St. Louis, not only does their LRT system have a Union Station, they also have a College, so the task of avoiding confusion deepens… There is also a Victoria Park on Calgary’s LRT system (well, “Victoria Park / Stampede”, but close enough for confusion).
If we ever get some sort of service to the zoo, we’ll have to make sure to name the station “Toronto Zoo” to follow the practice on other systems that have station names such as “Calgary Zoo” and “Dallas Zoo”.
😉
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I grew up in the Dufferin & Rogers area. As others have stated, those who live around Dufferin & Eglinton know that it’s Fairbank. I used to go to the Fairbank dental clinic, my wife went to Fairbank Public School (Dufferin a little south of Eglinton), friends attended the Fairbank Legion, my sister swam at Fairbank Park, … and on it goes. Needless to say, it has been well established for decades.
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In my opinion, cross streets and actual destinations (such as Science Centre) are best suited for station names as they help in navigation for people who are not familiar with neighbourhood names.
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I don’t think it’s relevant if “locals know the name”. The names are going to be more important for non-locals, and they may not know the “old stock” name. In addition, unless you’re actually looking to go to the old community of Fairbank (without anything more specific in mind), the name doesn’t help you. This is in contrast to, say, “Ontario Science Centre” which is an actual destination that non-locals would know and might actually want to get to.
Place names like “Little York”, “Swansea”, “Lansing”, etc., are interesting for a local history buff, but do not make good station names. As a matter of fact, while I don’t think it’s worth changing them, I find the University subway station names to be pretty unfortunate.
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Totally agreed. I acknowledge that, following the rules laid out, people are right in saying Fairbank is the correct name. But I will use the station (my brother lives just north-east of there) and the name doesn’t help me because it’s not the name of where I am going. It certainly won’t help people trying to find something they know is at Dufferin and Eglinton.
Neighbourhood names make great station names in many places, but I’m pretty convinced Toronto isn’t laid out right for them. In Melbourne, the Metro Trains system normally uses neighbourhoods, and it works great, because the train drops you in the middle of a shopping area built up around the station. In Toronto, rapid transit lines drop you off at intersections, and intersections here normally mark the boundary between neighbourhoods. In addition, our commercial areas often have a BIA name the is unrelated to the neighbourhood name, adding to the confusion.
In the case of Fairbank, it is the name of the neighbourhood on the west two corners and the BIA in the direction, which is probably more cohesive than other places in the city. But the north-east corner is Belgravia, the south-east is Oakwood-Village, and the BIA signs to the east say International Market. If I know any of those three facts, the name Fairbank hurts instead of helping.
If you want to name something after a neighbourhood, it should put you in the middle of that area, not on the edge of it and something else.
Steve: What is annoying is that they ignored a model we have where a station name has a “subtitle” such as “Bay Yorkville”. This would make it distinct from say, “Bay City Hall” on a Queen line. Nothing prevents them from having “Dufferin Fairbank”.
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Now that would be the way to go.
As has been said, not many other than locals tend to know just where the neighbourhoods are. The exceptions to this are those who actually promote their name through advertising or well-known events, such as Corso Italia, Greektown, and to a lesser extent, Bloor West Village.
Having subtitles with station names has several benefits, starting with creating uniqueness without going with cardinal directions (which limit the use of a name to three with a grid pattern, e.g.: Lawrence West, Lawrence, Lawrence East). One personal benefit that likely extends to others is the “teaching moment” that a subtitle has. Before I even started school, I knew where Yorkville was because of the subtitle of the Bay station.
Though, I was the sort of kid that questioned why it was done this way at Bay when the University line stations had the street name as the subtitle! 😉
Steve: I assume you know that the station was originally to be called “Yorkville”, but as a centre of the counter-culture when the BD subway was under construction, that was thought to be beyond what sensible Toronto could tolerate, ergo the change to a subtitle.
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I was going to post something similar, but I kept resorting to using cross streets as subtitles when I thought of examples. “Don Mills – Science Center” is fantastic, but what would you name Dufferin on the Finch LRT? As far as I know there’s neither an attraction or neighborhood that’s frequently associated with the intersection, so you’d have to use the cross street (as one example). It might be an interesting idea to have the local residents submit or vote on the subtitle names – Toronto has a lot of great neighborhoods that are passionate about their community and it would be a good way to get people involved.
As a random side note, I’ve always disliked the University stations’ naming – particularly Dundas/St Patrick. When I was a kid and ventured downtown to meeting up with friends, I’d always just say “King West”, or “Queen West”, or “Dundas West”, instead of “St Andrew, Osgoode, St Patrick” etc…everyone did this, because none of us could remember the right names. One day we were going to the AGO and told our friend to meet us at “Dundas West”…and that’s when we learned there was a real stop, actually called Dundas West, that was somehow on the Bloor line all the way across town!
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With respect to the use of Wexford for the name of the Victoria Park stop there is actually a park at Pharmacy and Ashtonbee, NE corner called Wexford Park. How it came to be I don’t know so if you used Google Maps you might think that Wexford was near there. But Wexford, Wexford Heights and Wexford Maryvale are all along Lawrence running from Pharmacy over to the old railway spur east of Warden.
At the corner of Warden and Ellington 2 blocks east of Warden is the Zion Wexford United Church and it has been there for a very long time; it started in 1842 as a “Primitive Methodist” Church. The current site was built on in 1876. It has at times also been a Methodist Union Church and a Presbyterian Church. It became a United Church on June 10, 1925 in Toronto, Ontario, when the Methodist Church, Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada, and 70 per cent of the Presbyterian Church of Canada entered into an organic union. Joining as well was the small General Council of Union Churches, centred largely in Western Canada.
Just a little bit of useless trivia for your historical edification. I used to catch the 54 Lawrence East in front of that church every day for 10 years.
Steve: Thanks for this tidbit. Planning by Google Maps is definitely alive and well at Metrolinx.
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Steve: This comment was submitted before I updated the underlying article with information about the revised station names.
Looking at the new presentation for the upcoming TTC Board meeting — it looks as though some names have changed again.
Wexford becomes O’Connor – which is an improvement.
Bermondsey becomes Sloane – which seems totally unnecessary, and I would think is a lesser known street.
Aga Khan becomes Aga Khan Park & Musuem. That’s just too long. I’d prefer just Aga Khan or Ferrand.
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New York has an Grand Central Station as well. Add that to your list.
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I wonder if the TTC will improve their rapid transit map by actually aligning the stations on the 3 east-west lines so that the stations on the same north-south artery are in deed directly north/south of each other? For example, Pharmacy appears to be directly north of Woodbine and Science Centre shows as being west of Leslie on the Sheppard line.
Steve, keep up the good work. I always enjoy reading your blog.
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Perhaps they are looking to save money with a shorter name. 😉
Fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm will recall when Larry David’s mother died, his father had her headstone read, “Past Away” because it cost less than “Passed Away”.
Of course, this is out the window with nfitz’s other point:
Steve: Maybe they were saving up all of the letter count for that one!
Not only that, but doesn’t this go against the grain of the “no duplicates” principle, as there is a “Museum” station, let alone the confusion with the likes of “Victoria Park”, “High Park”, “Downsview Park”, “Sunnybrook Park”, and of course, “Queen’s Park”. 😉
“Grand Central Station” in New York is a post office. “Grand Central Terminal” is a railway station.
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I jokingly suggested that Wexford be changed to O’Connor as it met Eglinton between Victoria Park and Pharmacy. I haven’t been in that area in 30 years but is was not as well know as Pharmacy and Victoria Park. I wonder how many people would think that they are on the subway when they saw the station name Victoria Park on the Eglinton Crosstown line?
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The decision to name both platforms at Eglinton and Yonge maddens me. Is there a reason I’m missing for not following the precedent established with Sheppard-Yonge?
Subway nostalgia aside, I think “Uptown” would be a great name for the station.
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I don’t understand the reasoning behind the TTC’s naming of the interchange stations, the only names they’re in charge of. Why can’t they follow the same hyphenated interchange naming convention of other interchanges on the system. Eglinton should become Eglinton-Yonge and Eglinton West should become either Eglinton-Allen or Eglinton West-Allen. Renaming Eglinton West Station to either Allen or Cedervale makes no sense in my opinion and will just cause confusion.
As for the Aga Khan stop, I don’t think there is enough time between Science Centre and Aga Khan to have a full next stop and arriving Anouncement for “Aga Khan Park & Museum”.
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